Accross Scotland by Open Canoe pt1

(Loch Ba)

Easter 07 and myself and 3 other open canoeist buddies from the 'song of the paddle' internet group finally met up at a car park on the A82 by Loch Ba, Rannoch Moor Scotland. We had arranged to cross Scotland from West to East, accross the wilderness of Rannoch Moor to the Lochs Rannoch and Tummel, down the rivers Tummel and Tay to Perth.

The team comprised of myself, Tony-tenboats (an active member of the song of the paddle group), Dave 'the Poling Gnome' and Mark VB.  Although only Mark and I had previously met each other the team very quickly demonstrated a common commitment to the expedition and to doing it in 'good style'.  To us 'good style' ment solving as many problems as we could on the water, making decisions about paddling or portaging based on our own judgement and the water levels, and doing it with total respect for the both the environment and the water.

(Tony on Loch Ba) 

The first part of the journey involves crossing Loch Ba and negotiating the Rivers Gaur and Garbh 

Gaur and Loch Laiden.  Rannoch Moor is probably one of the last remaining truely wild places in
Britain, it stretches out between Loch Rannoch to the West and Glen Etive to the East.  It covers about 50 square miles of peat moorland pocked with miniature lochs and rivers.  The largest of the lochs are Loch Ba and Loch Laiden connected by the River Gaur.  The 'Rannoch Moor Crossing' is concidered a great 'prize' by British Open Canoeists for its beauty, isolation, length and technical difficulty of the 2 rivers.   The trip was expected to last for 5 days.

The first day saw us paddle from the put in by the A82 accross Loch Ba, down the River Gaur
and accross Loch Laiden onto the River Garbh Gaur.  Loch Ba is a short but complex loch, it 
didn't take us long to negotiate this loch and join the river.  Although we had hoped that starting our trip in early spring would mean that we got the snow melt the river was low.  It meant that we had to negotiate alot of the river by technical poling and snubbing.  It was great fun, although
frustrating at times.
                                           
(poling)                                                                                         (Tony poling on the R.Gaur)

The next instalment coming soon!